


Thoughts at Night

by begonia



Category: The Dragon Prince (Cartoon)
Genre: F/M, Friendship, Hurt/Comfort, Late Night Conversations, Mentions of Claudia - Freeform, love advice
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-10
Updated: 2019-03-10
Packaged: 2019-11-15 00:58:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,962
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18063527
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/begonia/pseuds/begonia
Summary: Callum is up late one night thinking too hard about his feelings. Rayla steps into to try and give him some advice.





	Thoughts at Night

**Author's Note:**

> This fic isn't really romance, more of a caring about each other sort of situation, but you could certainly read some feelings into it. I love these two dummies way too much, but this is set before there's any established romance between them. 
> 
> First fic in a long time, so I'm rusty, but I had to write something rayllum-esque. They're too good and pure not to!

The moon hung just over the tops of the trees in front of him, casting its cool light over the dense forest. Callum sat with his legs pulled in, arms wrapped around them, tucking himself into a tight bundle of thoughts. On the ground next to him was his sketchbook, laid open to one of his numerous drawings of Claudia. Drawings he had spent ages working on, sneaking quick peeks at her as she read, commiting her gestures and expressions to memory, making sure he got each one just right. Now, though, he had several new, different expressions of hers seared into his mind. 

He groaned and buried his face deeper into his knees as he thought about it, desperately trying to come to terms with the new sides of her he had witnessed. Claudia, betraying him. Claudia lying to him about traveling to Xadia to bring Zym back to the Dragon Queen. Claudia, her eyes ultraviolet with dark magic, binding the illusion versions of himself and Ezran. Claudia, brows knit together in frustration and despair as he, Ez, and Rayla fled the Cursed Caldera. Claudia, with a familiar determined glint in her eye as she told Soren to keep Ralya alive just so they could find him and Ez. 

Callum groaned again and sighed, glancing through the hole between his arm and leg at the drawing of Claudia that beamed up at him from the paper. Smiling, holding her book of dark magic in one arm and waving to him with the other. He frowned. When he drew this picture, had he thought about what her wave meant? Was she calling him over? Or had she been waving goodbye? He couldn’t remember anymore, and he was starting to think he might never really understand her. 

“Aspero,” he whispered, lazily inscribing the spell in the air with one finger before gently blowing on the pages of his sketchbook. They shuffled around, flipping over and over until they landed on another page, another drawing of Claudia, this time sipping her hot brown morning potion and looking blissful. He wished he could share a cup with the Claudia he’d drawn in the picture.

Letting go of his knees, he shut the book with a heavy ‘thump’, then looked back up at the bright, nearly full moon and listened to the forest and all its trees bend softly in the night breeze. He ignored the padding of two light feet behind him until they stopped, and their owner put a hand on his shoulder.

“Got somethin’ on your mind?”

Callum shrugged the hand off lightly, not looking at her. He let one leg stretch out over the edge of the overhang he was sitting on and felt the breeze blow through the weave of his clothes and lap at his skin making it prickle with goose bumps. It felt good, he thought, to consciously feel the air around him when everything else about him was such a mess. 

“Not really,” he finally responded, lying through his teeth. 

“Hmmm,” Rayla replied, “so that’s why you definitely haven’t been huffing and grumbling over here for the past hour.” Her voice lilting with sarcasm as she sidled up from behind him and plopped down so she echoed his posed, one leg up, her head lolled onto her knee, and her eyes searching his face for signs of surrender. 

“It’s… it’s nothing. Really,” Callum insisted again, faltering this time. The corner of Rayla’s mouth he could see lifted slightly at his hesitation. 

“I was just looking at some of my old drawings and started to miss home, that’s all.” he tried to offer as way of satisfying her. 

Rayla’s half smile lowered again, her brows furrowing. She thought for a moment, then grinned. “So you were ogling all your drawings of Claudia then, were you?”

She was teasing him, but Callum tensed as she hit the nail on the head on her first try. He turned back towards the moon, and frowned, his face twisting up with frustration. 

“I don’t think you can call it ogling when all looking at drawings of her does,” he finally sighed, “Is make my insides twist, and my brain run in circles trying to keep up with everything I think and feel.” 

The cork on his feelings had been ripped out by her intuition, and his hands had gestured exasperatedly as he spoke. He heaved a long sigh and shifted his head back to look at her again. Both of them waited for the other to continue. 

“Sound’s a lot like love talk to me,” said Rayla finally, “All the feeling, and thinking, and twistiness, and circles.” 

She tried to elaborate by bringing one hand up to mimic the thoughts running around and around in his head like a tornado, “Doesn’t sound much different to how you’ve always been.” 

He blinked back at her, and then gazed up into the starry sky.

“But that’s the thing,” he said quietly, “It’s not the same anymore, I don’t think it is at least. There’s something different about this feeling now and what I felt for her before.” 

“How so?” Rayla prompted, though she didn’t have to, he could feel the words start to gush out anyway.

“I guess, it’s like, before, I was so sure. I was awkward, and shy, sure. But I was also so sure I liked her.” 

He paused, “Now? I don’t know… I guess I feel like maybe I was just in love with who I thought she was- who I wanted her to be. And now, I’m just realizing that there’s more sides to her than the ones I was so enamoured with. It’s hard to wrap my mind around them. It’s hard to think of loving another version of Claudia that includes all the stuff we’ve seen her do up to now, all the stuff I knew she did but had not idea about before, all the…” 

“All the dark magic?” Rayla offered cheekily, but Callum shook his head. 

“That too, but no, more like, all the lies, all the betrayals. I know, at least I think I know that she was just doing what she thought was best, but she also lied to me, tricked me, tried to kidnap us and Zym. It’s like I fell in love with a person I didn’t even know.” 

His words trickled to a stop, and the silence hung between them as they both digested what he had just said. He tore his gaze from the night sky to look back up at her, making sure her silence didn’t mean she had left him while he was spilling his guts.

But she was still there. Her face was contorted with the effort of thought, and she was bathed in moonlight that seemed to stick to every fiber of being, shining in her hair, and glistening on her pale skin. Her hand had reached up and grabbed a gossamer lock and she tugged twisted it as she thought about what he had revealed to her. 

“Maybe,” she said slowly, carefully picking her words from the jumbled heaps of them that were now circling around her mind too. “Maybe, its ok to fall in love with someone who you just think you know. I mean, sometimes you just can’t help it if you fall in love, so I don’t think it’s any fault of your own to fall in love with only part of a person.”

She closed her eyes and tried to make sense of her own words as she continued, “Sometimes, if you love only a part of a person, you might find out later that they’re not how you thought they were, or that there’s something that you fundamentally can’t agree on, and it doesn’t work out... and sometimes that’s ok,” she opened her eyes again, piercing his green with her determined lavender ones. 

“But maybe, sometimes not knowing everything let’s you discover something about that the person that makes you love them even more than before, and I think that can be good too. You have to decide for yourself how you feel about the things you learn along the way.” 

She paused, unsure of how to continue, and they stared at each other for another moment before she looked away at the moon.  
“I don’t know if that helped. Or made sense really…” She added quietly. 

“No, it was good,” Callum said. “I just wish it was easier than that. I wish I could just decide that I didn’t love her anymore. Or that I do love her and I don’t care about what she’s done. I just wish it was clear, you know? I wish it wasn’t a choice that doesn’t make any sense. I wish it wasn’t a choice I had to make at all.” 

Rayla scooted over to Callum so their sides met, and put her arms around him, giving him a little squeeze.

“I’m sorry,” she said softly into his shoulder, “I wish I could help you sort it out more. I wish that it hadn’t turned out like this.” 

He leaned his head on top of her shoulder, comfortable in her embrace. But somehow, her consolation didn’t feel like a losers prize. Instead, he started to feel tired, and like this thoughts have stopped racing though his head as they had been just a few minutes ago. His muscles relaxed, his body and mind becoming more tranquil. 

“How did you get so good at giving out love advice?” He questioned, pulling out of her hug and stretching his arms and legs out with a yawn. She yawned too, leaning her whole body back in a long stretch.

“Wanna know my secret?” She grinned at him, swinging her arms back down. His eyes widened with interest and he nodded thinking he would get to hear juicy details on Rayla’s own love life. 

“The truth is…” She paused dramatically to tease him, “I’ve never been in love. Nothing I said just now has any experience behind it.”

She let out a peal of laughter as Callum groaned and flopped onto his back, eyes rolling.

“You know, I’m not sure how I should feel about your advice anymore,” He moaned.

“You should feel just as good as you did before,” She insisted through giggles, “After all, it's the best you’ve got.” Rayla gestured towards to the dense forest, devoid of any other love gurus Callum could turn to. 

She stood up and headed back into the cave, “Now come on, we have a long journey ahead of us still, I can’t have a lovesick and tired Callum on my hands tomorrow!” 

He grinned as he scrambled up to follow. Regardless of her own experiences, Ralya’s advice had helped him. His mind had slowed, and the twisted knots in his stomach had loosened and settled. 

Callum yawned, his eyes watering, and took one last look back at the moon. It was lower now, just barely skimming the tops of the trees, and he smiled wistfully at it, nearly full. Nearly a month since he set out on the journey to bring Zym home. A month since his dad had died. A month since he met Rayla. A month since his world had widened beyond the comforts of Katolis. Everything was different now he realized, not just his feelings for Claudia. He let that thought sink in. 

“Learning about who and what you love along the way isn’t all that bad I guess,” He thought to himself, “Even if who you learn that from has no idea what she’s talking about”.

He smiled to himself and took one last look up at the bright moon and the tops of the trees before turning to follow Rayla into the dark.


End file.
